LibreOffice 4 Released

Titus Andronicus writes "LibreOffice 4.0.0 has been released. Some of the changes are for developers: an improved API, a new graphics stack, migrating German code comments to English, and moving from Apache 2.0 to LGPLv3 & MPLv2. Some user-facing changes are: better interoperability with other software, some functional & UI improvements, and some performance gains."

Minor Annoyance

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's just a minor inconvenience, but I wish open source projects would Osborne [wikipedia.org] themselves on their download pages when they know a new release is imminent so I wouldn't have to download projects that I don't keep close track of twice in two days.

That said, thanks for the awesome software!

Re:But what if Java is the next WAIS?

[cognoscentus]

Not seen any evidence of this, other than the lack of security updates for browser-plugin based vulnerabilities on Oracle's part. Out of curiosity, if you mean server side Java as well as client-side java, could you cite references? This is not to doubt there are big issues with the JVM, and the seeming sloth of response of Oracle to some of them - I'm just wondering what the vast amount of server-side infrastructure would do if the JVM were to be EOLed. In terms of relatively high performance, managed platforms, given Microsoft's flight from CLR, what are the alternatives? And why does Oracle seem so indifferent?

Re:But what if Java is the next WAIS?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I think the issue that needs to be faced is that it seems likely that Java is dead."

Well, you had better tell that to Google since it is the core language for all Android apps. You seem to be confusing a few vulnerabilities in Oracle's Java Runtime Environment with the entire Java software ecosystem. In general, Linux systems running Libre Office tend to not even use Oracles JRE. Java isn't going anywhere.

Re:But what if Java is the next WAIS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Java isn't going anywhere - not forward, and not away either. It's here to stay and for last 5 years it has not introduced anything new significant - nothing wrong with that - there is nothing wrong with a stable language (it's something C++ people don't seem to get).

Oracle isn't the only JVM vendor. Oracle isn't going to EOL Java anytime because their whole business stands on Java - if you installed anything since Oracle 8i, you'd understand why Oracle bought Sun, and why Java isn't going to have any problem surviving.

Re:MS Office mewlers and shills, queue here!

[westyvw]

Except Libre office has much better functionality, even though its less on price. Better integration with Calc, better formatting, better large document handling, the ability to extend it through the language of your choice, the ability to use scripts to update presentations without ever opening them, etc. I had both Microsoft and OpenOffice years ago, and when working on large (3000 + page documents) that I didnt want to use Latex for (mostly due to sharing with my editor), I prefered OpenOffice. In the end, we all use these "office" suites for purposes that are better served in another application. How many of us fought with layout in a word processor, when we all know Illustrator or Inkscape would have been a better choice? In the end LibreOffice has functionality, particularly today, that rivals or exceeds the suites you pay for.

To address your father, he really should not be sending documents to his clients in a processing format, but rather a PDF or use an online tool for collaboration. In the business I worked for, you could get fired for sharing a document in its raw format: too great a risk of sharing redacted or edited information.